A weekend auto accident in Newnan has left dozens of tombstones in a historic cemetery broken and damaged, city officials said.
And city officials are stuck with the daunting task of finding relatives the graves belong to in order to make repairs.
“We believe some of the burials occurred back in the 1930s,” Newnan public works director Michael Klahr said. “It will be difficult to identify some of the heirs .”
The car, driven by a group of teens, jumped a curb near the Oak Hill cemetery and went off the road, going airborne for nearly 30 feet, authorities said.
Klahr told AM750 & 95.5FM News/TalkWSB that as many as 48 tombstones were damaged.
“Some of them were broken up pretty badly,” Klahr said. “The impact the car had with some of the [tombstones] knocked them clear across one of our interior streets.”
Tombstones that weren’t shattered in an older section of the cemetery may have been soiled by the wreck.
“Fluid from the car possibly stained some of the granite that wasn’t polished,” Klahr said.
Now city officials have a bit of detective work ahead of them.
“We’re going to work through the records we have … and try and identify the owners and try and get in touch with them,” Klahr said.
No one was injured in the accident and the driver of the car was charged, authorities said.
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